We model merger control procedures as a process of sequential acquisition of information in which mergers can be cleared after a first phase of investigation. We find that the enforceability of clearance decisions at the end of the first phase is unattractive to the extent that it prevents the authorities to use their expectations as to whether evidence gathered in the first phase will be confirmed in the second phase. This deprives the first phase of its potential as an effective screening mechanism. We also find that when clearance decisions in the first phase are enforceable, a different (higher) standard in the first phase is only desirable when Phase I decisions are captured by merging parties (as opposed to complainants).
This paper provides an empirical assessment of race-to-the-bottom unilateralism. It suggests that decades of unilateral tariff cutting in Asia‟s emerging economies have been driven by a competition to attract FDI from Japan. Using spatial econometrics, I show that tariffs on parts and components, a crucial locational determinant for Japanese firms, converged across countries following a contagion pattern. Tariffs followed those of competing countries if the latter were lower, if FDI jealousy was high, and when competing countries were at a similar level of development.
This paper considers the APEC and proposed EGA agreements which grant tariff concession in favor of "green" goods. We find that the practical signi cance of the APEC agreement should not be overestimated as it involves modest tariff concessions over a subset of goods which are not heavily traded. Still, these agreements involve a paradigm shift to the extent that they use tariffs concessions negotiated on a purilateral basis as a policy instrument to meet public policy concern, instead of making market access conditional on meeting national regulations. We model the mechanism through which these tariff preferences provide incentives to change production in favor of green goods in exporting countries and highlight the challenges that the implementation of these agreements involve.
We estimate public investment gaps in a sample of developing countries using a public investment demand function. We then use GDP per capita projections, forecasts of structural transformation, and three SDG targets (poverty, infant mortality and lower secondary school completion) to predict public investment needs in 2030 among IDB borrowing countries. Our estimates suggest that in 2014 the total public investment gap of IDB borrowers was close to $170 billion (3.1 percent of the Region's GDP) and that the gap is expected to surpass $717 billion (6.3 percent of the Region's GDP) by 2030 if the SDGs were to be reached.
For over a century, legal scholars have debated the question of what to do about the debts incurred by despotic governments; asking whether successor non-despotic governments should have to pay them. That debate has gone nowhere. This paper examines whether an Op Ed written by Harvard economist, Ricardo Hausmann, in May 2017, may have shown an alternative path to the goal of increasing the cost of borrowing for despotic governments. Hausmann, in his Op Ed, had sought to produce a pricing penalty on the entire Venezuelan debt stock by trying to shame JPMorgan into removing Venezuelan bonds from its emerging market index. JPMorgan did not comply, but there was a pricing penalty. Intriguingly, the penalty hit only one bond; an issue by Venezuela's state-owned oil company that went on the market two days prior to the Hausmann's piece. That bond then began to carry the name in the market of "Hunger Bond". Using quantitative data and interviews with investors, we try to understand the causes of the Hunger Bond penalty and ask whether there are lessons for policy makers.
This paper provides an empirical assessment of race-to-the-bottom unilateralism. It suggests that decades of unilateral tariff cutting in Asia‟s emerging economies have been driven by a competition to attract FDI from Japan. Using spatial econometrics, I show that tariffs on parts and components, a crucial locational determinant for Japanese firms, converged across countries following a contagion pattern. Tariffs followed those of competing countries if the latter were lower, if FDI jealousy was high, and when competing countries were at a similar level of development.
This paper provides an empirical assessment of race-to-the-bottom unilateralism. It suggests that decades of unilateral tariff cutting in Asia‟s emerging economies have been driven by a competition to attract FDI from Japan. Using spatial econometrics, I show that tariffs on parts and components, a crucial locational determinant for Japanese firms, converged across countries following a contagion pattern. Tariffs followed those of competing countries if the latter were lower, if FDI jealousy was high, and when competing countries were at a similar level of development.
This paper provides an empirical assessment of race-to-the-bottom unilateralism. It suggests that decades of unilateral tariff cutting in Asia‟s emerging economies have been driven by a competition to attract FDI from Japan. Using spatial econometrics, I show that tariffs on parts and components, a crucial locational determinant for Japanese firms, converged across countries following a contagion pattern. Tariffs followed those of competing countries if the latter were lower, if FDI jealousy was high, and when competing countries were at a similar level of development.
This paper provides an empirical assessment of race-to-the-bottom unilateralism. It suggests that decades of unilateral tariff cutting in Asia‟s emerging economies have been driven by a competition to attract FDI from Japan. Using spatial econometrics, I show that tariffs on parts and components, a crucial locational determinant for Japanese firms, converged across countries following a contagion pattern. Tariffs followed those of competing countries if the latter were lower, if FDI jealousy was high, and when competing countries were at a similar level of development.
This paper provides an empirical assessment of race-to-the-bottom unilateralism. It suggests that decades of unilateral tariff cutting in Asia‟s emerging economies have been driven by a competition to attract FDI from Japan. Using spatial econometrics, I show that tariffs on parts and components, a crucial locational determinant for Japanese firms, converged across countries following a contagion pattern. Tariffs followed those of competing countries if the latter were lower, if FDI jealousy was high, and when competing countries were at a similar level of development.
